By Nathan Kanter

Upsets to kick off day 2 of Meridian Canadian Open

Jan 4, 2017 | 10:24 AM

The Meridian Canadian Open’s second draw began at 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning with a couple of big surprises.

Both Rachel Homan and Jennifer Jones were ousted in their first game, Homan falling 5-4 to Jacqueline Harrison from Mississauga, Ont., and Jones losing 5-4 to Brianne Meilleur from Winnipeg in an extra end.

Harrison said her team stuck to their game plan against Homan, other than a nerve racking seventh end where she led 4-3 and it looked like Homan was going to steal multiple points to take the lead.

“Overall I think we played our game,” Harrison said. “A little hiccup in the seventh end but luckily we were able to come out with that only giving up a steal of one. So overall I’m happy with the team’s performance.”

Moving forward, she said putting more guards in place will help.

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“Making more shots towards the end of the game and maybe making some more guards,” she said. “We kind of had some over curls [and] under curls so I think just getting those guards in better positions will improve our chances.”

Meanwhile Meilleur’s team is playing in their first Grand Slam event. Meilleur herself played at the Canadian Open two years ago in Yorkton, but her team of Rhonda Varnes, Janelle Vachon, and Sarah Neufeld are making their debut.

Regardless, they pulled out a win over Olympic gold medalist Jones.

“You always have to keep it close with the great teams and Jennifer is a great team,” Meilleur said. “So keeping it close so you have a chance to win is the big key there and that’s what we did.

“I get it that its everyone’s first slam so it’s a little bit nerve racking but I think they came together a lot better towards the end and hopefully starting that way for the next game would be great.”

In other games, Edmonton’s Val Sweeting made quick work of Russia’s Anna Sidorova, winning 10-2, while Allison Flaxey of Caledon, Ontario needed an extra end to beat Sudbury’s Tracey Fleury 9-7.

Sweeting said the key for her team’s dominant win was figuring out the ice first.

“Normally it kind of takes a bit to figure the ice out but I thought the girls played great – we  figured it out right away.” Sweeting said. “They were throwing them really close, it was just some would run a little straighter and they didn’t quite get the results but I thought that we just sort of took the opportunities when they came.”

In the all-international matchup, China’s Bingyu Wang was victorious 5-3 over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg.

Nathan Kanter is a reporter for battlefordsNOW. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11